


A Different and Dangerous Thing

by gigi_originally



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Peter Pan & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Feelings, Magic, Pathetic fallacy, Secret Santa, Sex Magic, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 06:51:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1103768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigi_originally/pseuds/gigi_originally
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wendy's magic is a very different kind of magic and it is dangerous because, above all, it works on Peter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different and Dangerous Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [naessas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/naessas/gifts).



When Wendy first arrives in Neverland, she is all wide eyes and wonder. She believes so strongly, so intensely, in all that Neverland has to offer that Peter cannot help but enjoy her. It is why he lets her stay for a while; why he treats her well, why he lets her go in the end. Because he  _enjoys_ her. Wendy-bird is a fascinating creature made of white lace, sparkling eyes and a fluttering heartbeat that burns in his hands.  

Peter is no fool though. He had thought in the beginning that her arrival -- the first girl in the long history of a timeless island -- must have been prompted by something truly special; something truly spectacular. And it had been. But it had not been what he thought it would be. Wendy's heart beats and bleeds true belief -- in magic, in Neverland, in  _him_ \-- but hers is not the heart he seeks. He knows because he checks. 

On the last night of her welcome in Neverland, Peter takes her to Skull Rock. She goes, excited, thinking it another adventure. Peter likes that about her, likes the way she takes to all the brutality of his world with unbridled enthusiasm.  _One girl,_  he thinks,  _is worth twenty boys._  If he could, he thinks in his most secret heart, he would keep her. If she could give him her heart and stay to play, he would keep her with him always. She is wild and vicious and fierce and he  _likes_  her. 

He finds out very soon after that he cannot keep her. Wendy's magic is a different kind entirely, far too dangerous to utilize, far too close to things that ruin youth. Wendy believes wholeheartedly but, more than that, Wendy  _loves_. And Wendy loves  _him_. Truly, completely, unselfishly. She gives him her heart on the platter of her own hands and he cannot take it. Nor can he keep her. 

So Peter sends her away, back to her cozy home and loving family, back to a world where magic exists only on the fringes, far away from him. He wants nothing to do with the magic Wendy brings to Neverland. 

But then the Shadow brings her back. Peter rages at it even as Wendy cowers in fear. She has landed in the mountains high above Crocodile Creek, far away from Peter's encampment, and Peter is there to greet her. He knows time is running out. He knows his power is shifting, weakening with time; he knows the magic missing from other realms has been leaching at the Neverland's core; but he will not consider the option the Shadow is so eager to force upon him. That night Wendy becomes the only person to see Peter Pan fight with his own Shadow.  

Right when Peter looks just about ready to skewer it (if he could), Wendy speaks up. In the voice Peter's ears have ached to hear in the long silence since she was last there, she says, "You can't send me home again, Peter. Not without Bae." 

He turns a fearsome glare on her but Wendy, having finally found her rightful footing, no longer cowers away from him. She stands shakily, apprehensive but courageous, believing that she has the power to change this. And she does. But Peter will never let her know that.  

He treats her terribly that night. He finally shows her the ruthless, heartless, unforgiving king he can be. He puts her in a cage brought into being by a mere thought, through the pure power of  _his_ belief. He makes the island itself quake with the force of his anger, makes the skies storm and the oceans churn, makes his own shadow hide in the Dark Hollow. He is wrath unbound and he rattles at her bones until she cries. 

In the morning, Wendy refuses to open her eyes until things have gotten better. She wills Peter's anger away, refuses to wake until he has calmed, refuses to acknowledge his presence outside her crude cell. He stares hard at her, waits her out until, finally, her discomfort prompts movement. He has been standing there for what feels like hours though and his leftover ire has ebbed. Wendy's magic has worked and it is both amusing and terrifying to Peter.  

He does not let her leave again. She does see Baelfire once but the boy does not see her. Then he seems to disappear from the island. Wendy is not allowed to leave. Peter has decided to keep her, the way he wanted to the first time, because her magic is real and true and dangerously strong because it works, above all, on  _him_.  

It takes Wendy time to adjust, to accept that she has walked willingly into a prison of her own making. While all her believer's magic will keep her safe, none of it will let her go home. Peter has ensured it. His will is law, his belief the all-powerful magic that governs Neverland, and he will not let her go.  

Her internment, however, is not wholly unpleasant. Peter has admitted already that he likes her. He likes her quite a lot. If he is to keep her now, he wants to enjoy her again, play with her the way he did the first time she fell into his life. So he makes nice, or as nice as he ever has. But there is strain now between them, the unhappy result of altered circumstances, a heart rejected and a heart broken. It stretches into years of silence, of dark looks and turned backs, of half-touches and spurned hands. It gnaws at Peter until he chooses to change it.  

(He wonders if Wendy is willing him to change it in that powerful, powerfully broken heart of hers.) 

He starts slowly, trying to win her back with little things, little comforts he can offer in the harsh jungle. Wendy never asks for them. She is as savage as any Lost Boy, as wholly content with the violence that becomes Neverlanders as she is with the frills and lace of polite London society. She takes what is hers with claws and teeth and the Boys are both fiercely protective of her and respectfully distant. They have learnt, through scars and blood, that the Wendy-bird has talons. 

The first thing Peter gives her is a comb procured from the mermaids, inlaid with jewels the like of which few have ever seen. She accepts it only because she is already exhilarated from their chase, smiling into the bright sunlight that stems from the sound of her laughter on the wind.  

Peter first finds her on the cliffs, arms spread wide and face turned up toward the open sky. He stares quietly, thoughtfully, at the unruly blonde curls whipping around her pixie face. He disappears for a moment and she is none the wiser. When he does approach her, he does so cautiously. She has fallen asleep in the warmth of the sun and cool of the breeze and Peter thinks she is painfully beautiful. He settles on his knees beside her sleeping form and traces the line of her brow with a single finger. He watches her eyes flutter open, watches the recognition settle into their blue depths and still he does not move. He takes it as a good sign that neither does she. 

"I've got something for you," he whispers. He does not mean for her to frown, to sit up and move away like an abused animal recognizing a threat. Still, she does all of these. Before he can say anything else she bolts. He gives chase because it is what they do. She runs and he chases. Halfway through the jungle, he hears her giggle and knows she is not running in fear, she is  _taunting_  him. It drives him harder and faster.  

He catches her easily against a tree in a clearing. He presses her backward into the bark, cages her not with sticks but the sinews of his arms on either side of her body. She laughs even as he closes the space between them to near nothingness. When he brings his hand up to brush against her hair, she finally stops. Wendy studies him with blatant curiosity, unused to such intimacy ( _anymore,_  his mind whispers).

Instead of saying anything, he pushes his hand into her hair and tucks the comb gently between the strands. Wendy remains perfectly motionless, expression openly confused. He leans back to admire the effect of his trinket. It is untidy in her tangles and Peter smirks at its lopsided placement. Wendy reaches up to touch the new adornment and Peter's smirk widens further as her fingers learn its shape. Her face is all incredulity. Peter takes the last available step, closing all the space between their bodies, and puts his mouth to her ear.

"Welcome back, my Darling," he tells her. Then he is gone, both hearts left pounding in their respective chests.

After that, he continues to give her things that grow in size. Sometimes she takes them, sometimes she hurls them back at him like weapons. One of the few she accepts are a book of fairy tales from one of the Lost Boys' realms. Another is a belt and dagger. Then, finally, he offers her a home.

The tree house he builds for her is the most elaborate piece of magic he has ever wrought. It is a huge, permanent structure, anchored to the land with the Pan's own blood. It will outlast the mermaids and the ocean, the trees and the sunrise, perhaps even the Pan himself, but he gives it to her like it is a whim, an easy creation.  

Wendy accepts it with many reservations. She recognizes the significance of a part of Neverland called  _hers_ , of what having a  _home_ of her own means. She cannot decide if is good that she has made herself a place through the sheer desire for one or if she is fitting herself better into the Wendy-shaped cage Peter is determined to build around her.  

Once Wendy does eventually accept her house, Peter begins to relax with her. He thinks it real progress and finds Wendy more fun for it, a better playmate than she has been lately. And, most importantly, she is bound to Neverland now. It is why his final gift to her is magic.

He rationalizes it by telling himself that he needs someone else on the island to know magic. His boys are unerringly loyal but none of them, not even Felix, have the kind of potential that Wendy's special heart holds. He tells himself it is insurance, another failsafe in a long line of contingency plans. But the truth is always lurking on the fringes of his mind. The truth is: Peter is absolutely fascinated by the possibilities of Wendy's magic.

As dangerous as he knows it can be, he knows too that he  _has_  her now, forever. She will remain with him into eternity. He can explore the possibilities on his own terms. He will teach her enough to have fun with but never enough to overpower him. And, unlike Peter, Wendy will not have the command of the land.

(He ignores the way Wendy walks fearlessly where even the Boys fear to tread. They way she never cowers at shadows, the way she plunges through the brush without a care of Dreamshade. He ignores the way the trees move for her, the way the earth is always steady under her feet, the way the breeze blows on her whims. He ignores the way he, who is Neverland itself, bends for the curve of her smile. He ignores the truth because he is  _the Pan_  and if he believes it is not so, then it  _cannot_  be so.) 

They start small again with little things like food and bandages. She has not played  _Mother_  in all of this second stay in Neverland but the Boys still come to her with their wounds when they cannot manage themselves. She picks it up quickly, magic falling from her fingers as natural as rain. Peter sees that he was right, of course, Wendy's magic is different from his. Where he only needs to will something into being, she has to want it. She needs more than belief, she needs love in her magic and it is a difficult and complex thing. A girl thing, he decides. 

One day he finds her concentrating terribly hard on some awful fruit that he knows no one will ever eat. When he asks what she is doing, she snarls viciously at some remembered insult and declares that she is trying to make medicine. He laughs for ages until she huffs and begins to storm off. She is an indignant bundle of white, so intent on her task that he finds himself actually smiling.

He catches her arm as she moves to pass him. He whirls her around, bringing her closer than she has been since the day with the comb, and informs her lowly that it is a different kind of spell she needs to manipulate things already in existence. Neverland does not bend its own creations to the magic of others. The island will give anything from nothing but only  _he_  can take from Neverland. 

"I've done it before," she states proudly. "I can do it again, if you teach me how." 

He should have said no but they still wind up in the darkness of the Black Castle practicing making shapes out of the rocks. The first time she fashions a chess piece out of the obsidian stones, she hugs him the way she used to before he sent her away. Peter takes her there more and more, with newer, bigger, better ideas. It is a game to him to see how far he can push her, how much he can convince her to do. Wendy never disappoints, never falls behind. Peter enjoys it more than anything he has done in the longest time. 

(In fact, Wendy's magic becomes stronger as they practice together, just the two of them in the dark, but Peter staunchly ignores what he does not want to acknowledge.) 

Before he knows it, they are moving whole groves of trees, reshaping the very landscape of the island to Wendy's wishes. Never once does Peter think to stop it. He urges her on, pushes her to do bigger, better, brighter things. She does, for her own entertainment as much as his, and he drinks it all in. There is something intoxicating about her power, about the way she wears her power, and Peter wants always to touch it and to touch her.

He spends most nights pressed against her back, hands over hers, guiding her movements. He shows her how to twist her wrist just right so that trees clear a path for her, shows her how to curve her fingers so that flowers bloom, shows her exactly how to stand so she can make the mountains rumble. She leans back onto him on those nights when he pushes her with the most difficult tasks, almost comfortable with his touch again. Her little body curls into his, fits perfectly into the hollows of his frame, and makes him ache for  _more_. 

One night he watches her brew a storm to assault the Jolly Roger. It is the most magic he has ever let her do, the hardest of all, and he will let her do it alone. He perches on the low balustrade of one of the Black Castle's many turrets and observes her. Peter has no real care for her stance or her technique; he has no reason to want her to get better. He is here this time because the way she works her magic sets his teeth on edge.  

There is desire pulsing in his veins, a heady liquid want that consumes him. It has built for years dripping into his blood one wicked smile, one conspiratorial glance at a time. Wendy gives him no indication that she feels the same -- at least, not with anything close to same intensity. Yes, he has felt her skin heat under his touch, heard her breath hitch at the sound of his voice, seen the way she watches him when she thinks he is not looking at her (Peter is never not looking at her) but she makes none of the advances she used to, has not tried to give him a thimble since before he sent her away, and he burns with impatience.

Peter wants her to want him, to crave him the way he craves her. He wants her touch on his skin, wants to touch his skin to hers in all the ways he can imagine. He wants her eyes on him all the time, wants her very being to be attuned to him, wants her to feel him the way he feels Neverland in his bones. Peter wants to possess every part of Wendy Darling, all her light, all her darkness, and every ounce of that enticing power.

Gradually he lets his mind re-focus on the girl in front of him rather than his desire for her. She is illuminated by the moonlight, blonde curls awry with his comb prominently on display, and she is studying him rather than the distant tempest under her control. He quirks an eyebrow upward. It is all the communication necessary between them in moments like this. 

"Come help me," she says.

He exhales a disdainful sound of amusement and tilts his head a little to the right. "Why?" 

"Because," she replies and there is a shift in her voice, in the very air around them, that almost makes Peter sit up. He pays close attention to her next words, to the hard way she swallows, to the way her eyes do not meet his, to the pink flicker of her tongue across her lips. She continues, "Because I'm better when you touch me." 

He does sit up then. He drops both feet to the stone floor and stares hard at her, all the roiling emotions in his torso screaming for release, for  _contact_. Because she is Wendy, because she is fearless and powerful and suddenly utterly sure of him, she matches his gaze and meets his challenge. She poses a challenge of her own and Peter cannot be dared.

Eyes dark, he rasps, "What was that, Wendy-bird?" 

"I'm better when you touch me," she repeats and lightning flashes in the distance. 

Peter stands with all the grace of a panther, lean body coiled tight with inhibited desires, and Wendy shudders visibly at his look. Thunder cracks in her storm. Despite rising to his feet, Peter makes no movement toward her but says instead, "It's been a very long time since you let me." 

There is no need for clarification. Not between the two them in this place, this castle made of dark secrets they both know. The Black Castle is built on the foundations of their shared desire for privacy and mortared with longing. What Wendy asks for will rattle every stone and bring it down around them. Peter is willing if she is.

Behind him, the storm brews in a vicious swirl of dark clouds, some blacker than night. 

With a jeering smirk Wendy tells him, "I never thought you needed an invitation,  _Pan._ "

There is crash of thunder so loud she jumps. Peter glances over his shoulder at her truly majestic concoction just briefly. It is a thing of great and terrible beauty, much like its creator. He smirks slightly, knowing he would be impressed if he were not so distracted. 

"I don't," is all the warning he gives her before his arms glide around her petite frame and his mouth descends upon hers in conquest. The sky around them lights up bright as day as she opens for him and thunder rolls again as her tongue works in time with his.

It is nothing like the first time either of them imagined. There are no wedding banns or white sheets for Wendy. She gives herself to Peter for a single word,  _"Mine,"_ in the rain against a hard stone wall. She lets him take all of her, lets Peter plunder her mouth and devour her breast. Lets him drive himself into her slick, virgin slit over and over in time with the thunder. Lets him spill every dark thought and desire in rough whispers against the shell of her ear and make her moan with it. 

For Peter it is everything he has never realized he wanted from her since the moment he felt her fall into his arms. Their coupling is rough and wild. This is the Wendy he  _enjoys_ , this wanton creature who mewls and keens and writhes against him, who gives away as much as she keeps. Who scratches at his back with unblunted nails, who both begs and smirks at him when she makes him moan.

He fucks into her relentlessly, their joining as electric as the forking lightning, and she cants up to receive him with legs spread wide. His hips beat the drum for the thunder's march; her fluttering clenching heat times the inconstant intensity of the rain.

Release, when it comes for them, is an explosion. Wendy's mouth opens in a silent scream, eyes rolling back under a pleasure so intense she thinks she might faint from it. Peter's release is a loud, angry sound and a constant pulse in his loins that is part blessed relief, part exquisite agony. 

The sky above them all but rips itself apart. 

Afterward, as Wendy lays sleeping on his chest under a steady drizzle, Peter realises what he has just done -- what  _she_  has just done. She is a force to be reckoned with, his darling little bird, for she has worked a magic like no other. She has used that heart full of love to make Neverland her own and Peter, whose blood and bones and breath draws from the island itself, who vowed never to let her kind of magic free, is the one who handed her the key. 

**Author's Note:**

>  **Secret Santa Prompt:**  
>  Peter was occasionally good to Wendy during her time on the island. He saw how easily she took to belief, and teaches her how to use magic. She’ll never be as powerful as he is, and she’s never getting off his island, so he doesn’t see the harm in a little indulgence. (I just want Peter getting up close and personal under the guise of “teaching” Wendy how best to stand when casting a spell)


End file.
